


An Exposé on the Sixth House

by Zalphon



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 21:03:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16374986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zalphon/pseuds/Zalphon
Summary: The true history of the Sixth House and the events of Red Mountain.





	An Exposé on the Sixth House

If you are reading this, I urge you to destroy it before it is discovered that you have it, because what I am to reveal to you is heresy of the highest order and to be caught with it would be to end on the wrong side of the Ordinator’s mace. I beg of you, burn this text once you have read it in full and understand that I did not write it to endanger you, but because the truth must be told. The Sixth House has been smeared by the Tribunal, but no longer may I stand idly by as they do so. Without further adieu, dear reader, I present the fruits of years of research done by candlelight in the dead of night.

As it is well known, the tradition of the Great Houses predates even the Battle of Red Mountain, but it was in that era that the Houses were not as they are now. They were not governing bodies who held power over the legislature of Morrowind (Resdayn in those times), but rather they were families (by blood or by spirit). It is true that the Houses of the modern era still bear resemblance to this in the distinction between those they have contracted into their service and those who have been formally welcomed into the House as a member of the family, but back then, there were none contracted into service. One was either entirely a member of the House or they were entirely not a member of the House; there was no transitional period of being a sworn contractor to the House.

What distinguished the Sixth House from the others of that era was not the dogmas of the Priest Caste as does now, but something different entirely. Whereas the other Houses were melding pots of different personalities and ideologies that eventually simmered into what we see today, House Dagoth was never a melding pot. The nucleus of House Dagoth was always Voryn Dagoth himself, or as the Temple as dubbed him, Dagoth Ur. He was the heart and soul of the House and others gravitated to him, because he was a visionary. He spoke of a grandiose vision of Resdayn and of what it could be and how it would be those of the Sixth House who would usher Resdayn into an age of prosperity that would last a thousand years and those who heard him were inspired.

There are some surviving letters between Voryn Dagoth and Indoril Nerevar from the time prior to the Dwemer and the Chimer uniting to push the Nords back from their lands and these letters reveal some unsettling truths about the relationship between the two. Indoril was barely at the cusp of maturity when he united the Houses and for several years prior to that, he had maintained a healthy friendship with the much older Voryn Dagoth who had amassed quite a following from the disenfranchised Chimer dealing with the constant aggressions of the Northmen. While Nerevar was never a member of the Sixth House, this was not due to his lack of desire, but rather due to Voryn’s refusal to welcome him into the House. This caused a rift between them, because Nerevar considered Voryn to be his brother and yet he was pushed away when he requested to join the House of the one he considered his brother.

There has been some speculation regarding this amongst Sixth House Scholars in the few texts I’ve been fortunate enough to get access to, with two theories dominating the dialogue regarding Voryn’s refusal. One paints Voryn as being a prophet, near the likes of Velen, who saw that Nerevar would become greater than he could ever hope to be and did not want his young friend to live in his shadow despite his massive potential. The other, which I find more plausible, is that while Voryn was a man of words, he recognized that Nerevar was a young firebrand and looking to take action. Those who hold to this theory muse that Voryn was afraid Nerevar would overshadow him and he would lose the cult following which he had worked so hard to amass. Either way, Nerevar was never welcomed into the Sixth House and this caused a rift between them that would not be mended until Nerevar united the Houses.

It was when Nerevar came to Voryn and revealed his plans to become the War Chief of the Chimer that Voryn rallied the Sixth House behind him entirely. In the months following, one by one, they all unified with Nerevar as their War Chief and Voryn as his most trusted advisor and closest friend. As well all know, the war ended when the Joint Dwemer-Chimer Alliance drove the Nords from Resdayn and Dumac Dwarfking founded the First Council of Resdayn which ruled in peace until the War of the First Council.

Many scholars of the War of the First Council believe that the Sixth House betrayed the Chimer, but others, including the Temple, claim the opposite. I have uncovered translations from Voryn’s diary that reveal what transpired between the Formation of the First Council and the War of the First Council. With Nerevar’s fame and the prosperity he ushered in by pushing out the Nords, the Sixth House waned considerably in acclaim both outside of the House and within. Voryn referred to this event as the ‘great sickness of my house’. He watched as all but his most loyal followers renounced their allegiance to the House and left it a shadow of its former self. Voryn was defeated in the way that only a man who has lost everything can be.

He watched as his dreams came undone before his eyes and his vision was decaying in front of him. It was like watching his worst nightmares unfold but not being able to wake up from it, but all was not lost as his most loyal followers did not abandon him and perhaps more importantly, neither did Nerevar. The diary entries note that Nerevar still considered Voryn to be his closest friend and even welcomed him into his own house—something which Voryn took great shame in, but he never admitted it to his friend. Even still, Nerevar did everything in his power to ensure that the Sixth House was honored for being the first house to align with him during the war against the Nords, but it was of no use. The Sixth House was a shadow of its former self and not even Nerevar himself could breathe life back into it.

When it became evident that war between the Chimer and the Dwemer was unavoidable, there were but eight members of the House. Besides Voryn, there was Araynys, Endus, Gilvoth, Odros, Tureynul, Uthol, and Vemyn. Voryn sent them as his emissaries to speak to the Dwemer in the citadels surrounding Red Mountain in hopes that they could pacify enough of the Dwemer on Vvardenfell that Nerevar could focus his war efforts on the mainland and hopefully not have to fight on two fronts. This did not go as anticipated.  
When Nerevar had pushed back the Nords seeking to capitalize on the aftermath of the First Council dissolving on the mainland and pushed back the Dwemer, he set sail with but a small fraction of his forces because Voryn had assured him that the Vvardenfell Dwemer were not interested in warfare thanks to the actions of the Sixth House. This was incorrect. It was when Nerevar and his forces touched the shores of the Grazelands that they discovered just how wrong Voryn had been.

The Dwemer had largely subjugated the Ashlander tribes once Voryn set sail to deliver the news to Nerevar and they had taken military control of Vvardenfell. Nerevar was initially at arms with Voryn’s betrayal until he realized that it was not just he who had been betrayed, but both of them. So, with what little of Nerevar’s forces had come across the sea and those he could muster up from the Ashlander tribes and the settlements he liberated from Dwemer control, they marched upon Red Mountain. A group of these recruits stood out—Vivec, Almalexia, and Sotha Sil respectively. They quickly edged out Voryn as Nerevar’s lieutenants in the upcoming battles.

The trek to Red Mountain was difficult and Voryn, having felt betrayed by Nerevar’s trust of these three over himself, elected to operate independently. Whereas the Army’s movement was slow as it was a hulking force composed largely of people who had never so much as held a blade, Voryn’s movement was not. In the time it took them to reach where the Ghostgate stands today, Voryn had already been operating inside and systematically killing those who had betrayed not only their people, but the Sixth House. One by one, his emissaries met their demise at the end of his blade and one by one, he destroyed the only thing he had ever loved besides Nerevar—his House.

When the Emissaries were dead, Voryn reunited Nerevar, the Tribunal, and their army which was now roughly a third of the size it had been when he parted from the group. They stormed the Citadel and that is where the story becomes much harder to piece together, but I have come across Nerevar’s last diary entries before his death. They have allowed me to piece together the events of what happened at the Citadel. I believe that in the fighting, Nerevar, Voryn, and the Tribunal acted as a strike team that went for Kagrenac after they had slain Dumac and he fled upon seeing them. He knew the citadel much better than they, especially given that he was its architect, and it was at the Heart Chamber that he commanded they come no further—and when they did—he struck the Heart and then all of the Dwemer were simply gone.

It was then that Nerevar knew there was no one else he could trust with the tools than the one who had always stood by his side. Voryn. He instructed Voryn to take the tools and Voryn, feeling defeated in ways incomprehensible to those who have not lost their life’s work to termites, agreed. He did not fear death any longer. The War was over. His house was in ashes. He needed not fear death, for he was dead already—the only difference was that he was still walking.

The Tribunal then took Nerevar outside the room and requested that they, not he, be entrusted with the Tools. Nerevar disagreed and when he did so, they threatened to kill Voryn if he did not surrender the Tools. To this, Nerevar was appalled and aghast. How could they threaten him when he had fought beside them in this gruesome battle? How could they carve up one of their own—had their not been enough blood shed on this day, he asked. To this, they said no. They would not trust him with the tools and that if he did not give them willingly, they would kill him for it.

Nerevar reluctantly marched back into the Heart Chamber and requested the Tools back, which shocked Voryn. “Have you so little trust in me, Nerevar?” he asked. “I was your teacher. I am your brother. I have bled beside you and I have risked my life saving yours more times than there are stars in the sky and you do not trust me?”

It was then that Nerevar drew his blade, knowing that he would not strike Voryn true and would only instead strike with the flat to stun his friend rather than kill him as those he had mistakenly trusted would have, but Voryn looked at him with pain in his eyes. “Really?” he asked. “You are going to kill me for these tools?”

“Do I have a choice?” Nerevar asked. “I can’t let you keep them.”

“Then why did you ask this of me?”

“I was wrong, Voryn. I need them.”

“This is why you asked this of me, because I will not give it to you, Indoril. You know as well as I do that these are of a corrupting nature—you saw it with Kagrenac and I will not let it happen to you.”

It was then that Nerevar drew back his blade, intending only to slap Voryn with the flat of it, but Voryn had already pulled his own out and parried the blow. It was in response to the sound of the ebony clashing that the others came and seeing Voryn with his sword, they quickly struck a fatal blow. Voryn laid there struggling to breathe when he looked up at his brother with tears in his eyes and he whispered something that shook Nerevar.

“I did not take you into my house,” he said at a whisper between bloody coughs. “Because you are the Moon-and-Star and neither the Moon, nor the Stars belong under one roof.”

The Tribunal did in fact use the Tools of Kagrenac to bestow divinity upon themselves and when it was offered to Nerevar, he did not partake in such. He could not even raise himself to look at them. His closest friend was dead, because of this. Because of those god-forsaken tools. Nerevar did not leave that citadel even after the others did. He stayed in there for somewhere around three week’s time before his final diary entry which doubled as a suicide note.

In the entry, he spoke a great deal about Voryn. About how no matter what he did, nothing could bring him back and how he betrayed his best friend. His only true friend. His brother. He spoke about how his guilt would transcend lifetimes and how he hoped that if ever they should meet again in their next lives, he hoped that he could make right what he did wrong. Based upon the blood splatter on the pages of the text, it is safe to assume that Nerevar slit his own throat upon completion of the diary entry.

I know that the Temple has spun quite a web about what happened within that Citadel, but what I reiterate to you is from the mouths of Voryn and Nerevar respectively. Everything I have brought to you has been pulled from their diaries, their letters, or surrounding historical documents which I have access to due to my position within the Temple. I must say oncemore, I insist you destroy this text once you read it, because what I have told you here is again heresy of the highest order. I have shown you that while the Sixth House did betray Nerevar, it also betrayed Voryn himself, and that it was not Voryn who betrayed Nerevar, but the Tribunal.

I have heard rumors of the Nerevarine Prophecies and I urge you, dear reader, do not fall for the lies of the Temple as I once did. I know you can not touch these texts as I have, but I promise you, I do not speak un-truths. I wish only to illuminate that history has painted the Sixth House as the evil, and to a degree, it was, but there is more to it than we have been told.

Know this, dear reader, they will find me. They will kill me. But they can not kill the truth and I urge you to spread it as I have, but do so safely.

May Dagoth and Nerevar guide you.


End file.
